Please find the text of the letter below.

Greetings President Sands and Provost Clarke,

I am writing to you today on behalf of the Virginia Tech Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (VT AAUP). On March 4th, 2025 we held a chapter meeting and our membership had several questions about the position of the administration regarding executive orders concerning Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) issued in late January 2025. Members expressed concern that there has been much preemptive compliance with these orders, especially considering that a federal judge in Baltimore largely blocked them as they apply to institutions of higher education on February 21st, 2025.

President Sands, during the State of the University address, you mentioned holding a series of town halls to discuss these EOs and the effect on programs including InclusiveVT and our Principles of Community. Can you give us an update on when and where these town halls will be held? 

Although we are sensitive to employees of the university who might feel fear of retaliation and want to change their job titles if they included specific words targeted in the EOs, we feel a pronounced downstream chilling effect in our speech; in our faculty meetings, while rethinking language to be used in syllabi, and in general on campus as a consequence of instances of preemptive compliance. Chapter members voiced concerns that undergraduate and graduate students alike are feeling that we as faculty members have not done enough to speak up about unconstitutional actions coming from the executive branch in recent weeks. Provost Clarke, thank you for your empathetic message published on March 4th, 2025. You are clearly aware of the feelings of fear, anxiety, and oppression currently shared by students and faculty alike in the current climate. Please let us know if we can provide additional testimony, or other forms of support during the current uncertainty. 

In my own department I had served for years on a committee focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in the wake of these orders the committee’s name was changed to the “strategic engagement and opportunity” committee. When I asked the committee chair why this change was made, I got the response that they were “following orders.” The question I have for you both is, whose orders? It is unclear to many VT AAUP chapter members where these changes in language and meaning originate, and we continue to receive unclear and sometimes contradictory explanations from our immediate supervisors. We understand that there is a certain amount of legal uncertainty involved, but venture to ask, might we gain some clarity from the University leadership on the use of the words Diversity Equity and Inclusion at this moment? Does the University condone/support such committees changing their names and/or, more consequentially, shifting the focus of the work being done therein?  Thank you for taking the time to read these questions.

Sincerely,
Kristopher C. Hite
President
Virginia Tech Chapter of the American Association of University Professors

Update: We promptly received an encouraging response from President Sands promising updates and relevant information to all campus communities after the March 25-26 Board of Visitors (BoV) meeting.